The Beautiful and the Damned

First published in 1922, this novel follows Anthony Patch, a privileged young New Yorker waiting to inherit his grandfather's reformer's fortune, and Gloria Gilbert, whom he marries. They live on expectation, parties, and drink in the city and at a rented house, while work and purpose recede. When the grandfather sees their life, the will becomes a legal battleground. Anthony's war service and Gloria's fear of aging deepen the drift. The book is a novel of marriage and money in the years around the First World War, not a documentary of Jazz Age celebrity.

Bound in blue and silver image blocked cloth. Pale blue slipcase.